The American Writers Museum explores video games and game writing in "Level Up."
Whether you're a fan of old tabletop games or role-playing mobile games, the American Writers Museum's new exhibition "Level Up: Writers & Gamers" has something sure to interest you.
In honor of gaming surpassing the music and movie industries combined annual revenue, this exhibition showcases the evolution of game writing as a writing form, from the advent of Dungeons & Dragons to the recent developments of Baldur's Gate 3 and other immersive gaming experiences.
"Level Up: Writers & Gamers"
Through 5/5/25: Thu-Mon 10 AM-5 PM, American Writers Museum, 180 N. Michigan, exhibits.americanwritersmuseum.org/exhibits/level-up, adults $16; seniors, students, and teachers $10; children under 12 free
Spanning two galleries, the show spotlights gaming writers who have built the industry into what it is today and explores how gaming ties into American history and literature.
Gaming developers and writers featured include Monte Cook, who cocreated Dungeons & Dragons and designed games such as HeroClix and Numenera; Michael Pondsmith who created the tabletop roleplaying game Cyberpunk which was later adapted into Cyberpunk 2077; and Chicago native Tanya DePass who became popular from Twitch livestreaming and who created Into the Mother Lands.
While being both informative and interactive, the history section explores the satanic panic of Dungeons & Dragons in the 80s; the video game audience rating system hearings from the 90s; and the recent GameStop short, before showing further developments of choice-driven and roleplaying games and the importance characters bring to the story.
The exhibition also highlights literature that contends with gaming in some shape or form, such as Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin and Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.
"Level Up" proves to be a perfect time for fans of gaming, history, or literature to nerd out.